William Jennings Bryan’s Last Message: a reprint of his famous closing arguments for the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, undelivered and posthumously published

William Jennings Bryan’s
Last Message

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William Jennings Brya

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A final photograph, 1925

William Jennings Bryan’‘s
Last Message

a reprint of his famous closing
arguments for the

1925 Scopes Monkey Trial,
undelivered and
posthumously published

Edited, with an introduction,
by Joe Cain

Euston Grove Press, London

First published in 1925:
The Last Message of William Jennings Bryan
(New York: Fleming H. Revel Company).

Reprinted in 2009:

Cain, Joe (ed.). 2009. William Jennings Bryan's Last
Message: a reprint of his famous closing arguments for the 1925
Scopes Monkey Trial, undelivered and posthumously published.

Euston Grove Press

20 Elderwood Place

London SE27 OHL United Kingdom
www.EustonGrove.com

‘Editor’s Introduction’ copyright 2009 Joe Cain
ISBN 978-1-906267-16-2

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library.

front cover: William Jennings Bryan arrival at rail station,
Dayton, in 1925 at start of the Scopes Trial.

back cover and frontispiece: one of the last photographs of
William Jennings Bryan.

Mr Bryan’s Last Message

Table of Contents

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Joe Cain

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Mrs. Mary E. Bryan

The Story of the Last Message .........::ccssceeeses

George F. Milton

THe Last MSSSaOG, ci vosrsessreseanaatnaransazartvenasteiags

William Jennings Bryan

Address Delivered at the Funeral Service

of William Jennings Bry aMisccaitecenicteneenstenien

Rev. Joseph R. Sizoo

vi

Mr Bryan’s Last Message

Mr Bryan’s Last Message vii

[nio]

Editor’s Introduction

Joe Cain
Historian of Biology, University College London

Bryan’s closing argument was designed to serve three pur-
poses. First, it summarised the legal case for the prosecu-
tion. No surprise. Also, no surprise was the fact it repeated
many themes Bryan had presented before. This was intended
as something of a stump speech, delivered to the world via
newspapers and, importantly, radio. After all, Bryan was a bril-
liant campaigner, and this was part of a campaign.

Bryan’s third purpose was new. His closing argument laid
the ground work for a change of tactics in later campaigning.
“True” science and religion did not conflict, he wrote. In fact,
people owed much to science. Think of medicine, steam, and
the tractor. Religion wasn’t hostile to such developments. But
science had overreached itself; become too big for its britches.
In pretending to know everything and to command cultural
dominance, science had become lost in its own hubris. Sci-
ence is not a teacher of morals, Bryan wanted to stress. It
did not deserve the priority it had come to insist upon. As he
frequently said, people needed to care more for the ‘rock of

viii Mr Bryan’s Last Message

ages’ than the ‘age of rocks’. This criticism of science was
not new to Bryan’s closing argument, but he started empha-
sising it more than he had done before. There was a reason
for this subtle change.

Bryan was attempting to shift models for the relationship
between science and religion: from “conflict” to “separate
spheres”. In effect, he was positioning himself to move his
flock away from attacking science and towards a return to
the church. Bryan was well aware of the circus atmosphere
in “Monkey Town,” as Dayton had been called. He also was
aware of the frenzy developing among supporters of his
campaign. While Bryan wanted change, he did not want war.
His flock was being readied for a claim of victory over the
hubris of scientists, then a call to return home. Back to the
pews. Back to the Brbke. Back to engaging theological Mod-
ernists in American Protestantism. It’s easy to forget Bryan’s
doctrinal goals had priority in his anti-science, anti-elitist
campaign. His closing argument was intended as the first step
in the next phase of his campaign.

Bryan’s death prevented further elaboration. “What-if”
questions have no place in genuine history. We'll never know
if this line might have developed in a meaningful way, or if
Bryan would have succeeded in calming his flock and focus-
ing their attention back on Modernism within the church. We
are left with that intriguing possibility.

For me, Bryan’s Last Message gives reason for hope. I have
no personal sympathy for Bryan’s campaign, and I find in-
numerable errors in his arguments about evolution. Still, I
feel there’s something virtuous in Bryan that deserves serious
reflection. Is science too big for its britches? Is the cultural
authority demanded by science and Modernism in line with
their capacity to deliver? Can they be creative without also
destroying? Even though I would answer these questions dif-
ferently from Bryan, I understand him as someone demand-

Mr Bryan’s Last Message ix

ing others justify the high cultural position their seek to hold.
At the very least, Bryan’s Last Message gives us a glimpse into
a more complex person and a more fully rounded campaign
than is often remembered for Bryan. Inherit the Winds Mat-
thew Brady, William Jennings Bryan was not.

Further Reading

Some exceptional work on Bryan and the Scopes Trial is
available. These three well balanced historical studies are es-
sential starting points for any serious interest of the period
and its issues.

Larson, Edward. 1997. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes
Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science
and Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press).

Numbers, Ronald. 1992. The Creationists: The Evolution
of Scientific Creationism (New York: Knopf).

Ruse, Michael. 1992. The Evolution-Creation Struggle
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

On Bryan, the recent biography offers a fine overview of his
life,

Kazin, Michael. 2006. .A Godly Hero: The Life of Wil-
liam Jennings Bryan (New York: Knopf).

Transcripts of the Scopes Trial offer much insight events at
Dayton.

Rhea County Historical Society. 1925. The world’s most
famous court trial: Tennessee evolution case: a complete
stenographic report of the famous court test case of the
Tennessee anti-evolution act. (Cincinnati, OH: Nation-
al Book Company).

x Mr Bryan’s Last Message

Publication history

This text of Bryan’s last message, and other text in this book
first appeared in 1925, published by the Fleming H. Revell
Company (New York, Chicago, London, Edinburgh). Milton’s
introduction provides a clear narrative connecting the 1925
text to Mr Bryan.

Editorial conventions
[ | editorial interventions from Cain.

numbers in [ ] page numbers in 1925 text. Where a page
break occurs within a single word, it is
here given after the word. Text before a
number appears on previous page in origi-
nal; text after a number appears on the
page noted:

eg, x [2] y

“x” is on page 1; “y” is on page 2

BIC? ac error in the original, with suggested cor-
rection from Cain.

[nio] material not in original. This page or sec-
tion is an addition by Cain.

Several paragraphs are indented here but not on the 1925
original. These include the paragraph beginning “Evolution is
a bloody business...” on page 61, and the paragraph begin-
ning “The greatest danger menacing...” on page 65.

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 1

[5]

Note from Mrs Bryan

(Mrs.) Mary E. Bryan
Marymont, Coconut Grove, Florida

THIS last address of Mr. Bryan was written immediately after
the close of the Dayton trial.

He had apparently relaxed from any strain under which
he may have been working and appeared to be in the best of
health and spirits. He was particularly pleased with the devel-
opment of the theme.

Iam glad to give my approval to this little book as it car-
ties out his expressed wish that the speech should be given
the widest possible publicity.

Mr Bryan’s Last Message

Mr Bryan’s Last Message

[7]

The Story of the
Last Message

By George F. Milton
Editor, The Chattanooga News

HERE is the story of the undelivered address of the late
William Jennings Bryan. It was Mr. Bryan’s steady intention
during the course of the trial of John Thomas Scopes in
Dayton to participate in that trial only to the extent of mak-
ing the final closing argument for the State.

He did not depart from his intention until there came the
argument of the admissibility of the evidence of the defense
experts. Whether or not he spoke then out of a desire to
buttress the arguments of the State counsel for excluding
this evidence, is not known, but Mr. Bryan did make a brief
address on this issue.

He afterwards told friends that his arguments on the
admissibility of the evidence had not duplicated in any point
the themes upon which he intended to play in his closing
address.

4 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

Mr. Bryan had been gathering authorities for some time to
cite in this final speech. He had been storing up his strength
for it. He had collected a great amount of material, but had
not put it into written form, expecting to answer during its
delivery points recently raised by the defense. [8]

The sudden demand of Clarence Darrow on Monday
afternoon, July 20, that Mr. Bryan go on the witness stand
as a defense witness, and the examination which ensued was
so foreign to the case, and the questions and answers so
shocking to the judge and the State lawyers that the case was
brought to a sudden close the following morning without any
final appeals by the lawyers on either side to the jury.

Consequently Mr. Bryan’s great closing speech was left
undelivered.

Mr. Bryan announced Tuesday afternoon that he would
commit to writing his closing argument, and give it to the
press for publication. He dictated it to his secretary, W. E.
Thompson, Wednesday and Thursday, and the latter typed it
before he left for Petersburg, Va., for a brief visit Thursday
night.

On Friday, Mr. Bryan came to Chattanooga, and inquired
of the writer for a printer for his speech. He was put in touch
with the Chattanooga Printing Company, took his copy there,
and remained in Chattanooga that day and was able to read
the first proof sheets that evening.

Saturday morning Mr. Bryan and his wife motored to Win-
chester from Chattanooga and the great Commoner made a
speech at Winchester Saturday afternoon at three o’clock.

Immediately after that he motored back to Chattanooga,
where he was given the page proofs of the speech by the
printer. He spent Saturday night in Chattanooga, and early
Sunday motored to Dayton. Part of his time in Dayton was
occupied in comparing the first and revised proofs. [9]

Mr Bryan’s Last Message iB}

His Last Conversation

Sunday afternoon at three o’clock the writer received a long
distance call from Dayton from Mr. Bryan, in connection
with the dissemination of his speech. Mr. Bryan said that he
had decided for it to be released for Sunday morning news-
papers, at the end of the current week; and that he thought it
quite likely that a large number of the country weeklies would
wish to have the complete speech as a supplement to their
issues, and inquired as to the practicability of this being done
for them.

In this conversation, the last that Mr. Bryan had during
his life, so far as can be ascertained, he expressed himself
as being highly delighted at his reception at Winchester, and
equally well pleased at the final form in which his speech had
been put.

“T feel that this is the mountain peak of my life’s
efforts,” he told the writer. “I only regret that I did
not have the opportunity to make it at the close of
the trial.

“T want you to study this speech. I think it an-
swers all the arguments of the evolutionists. The
evolutionists really are a menace to the faith and
the morals of America. I am particularly hopeful
that my speech will be printed in full and distrib-
uted all over the country.”

The writer then asked Mr. Bryan about an offer which had
been made to him by a New York syndicate to prepare a se-
ries of articles upon his position in the evolution controversy,
these articles to be answers to a similar series to be written by
Clarence Darrow.

Mr. Bryan declared that he had no intention [10] of ac-
cepting the offer. “I do not intend to do anything to add to
the publicity of the views of such men,” he said.

6 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

“My fight is not with the agnostics or the atheists. I am
not engaged in a controversy with them. My fight is with the
so-called ‘modernists’ of the Christian Church over a matter
of Christian doctrine and belief, and in this battle I am not
concerned with the views of agnostics or infidels.”

Mr. Bryan then said that he would be in Chattanooga at
eight o’clock Monday morning with his final proofs, and after
a few minor corrections had been made by the printer, he
would have them available for newspaper release, and would
discuss the technique of that operation. Mr Bryan’s death oc-
curred within an hour of this conversation. His widow knew
well his keen desires about his great undelivered oration and
she asked the writer to superintend the final corrections in the
proofs, and to handle the technical matter of its release for
publication and its distribution by the various press services,
which was done.

Penciled Corrections

There is upon my desk at the moment the first proof sheets
of the speech. On all nine pages of the proof were correc-
tions and interlineations, penciled by the hand of the great
Commoner. With meticulous care he must have read this
proof. At the end of the first galley sheet he carefully altered
“godliness” into “godlessness.” One of the typographical er-
rots he has corrected, on practically every page of the proof
has been [11] the word “guesses,” set “guests” by the printer.
Mr. Bryan had been referring to evolution as “millions of
guesses strung together.”

On another page of the proof the printer had set is one
of the “weazel words” with which Mr. Bryan said the evolu-
tionists were attacking the truth of the Bible, the word “prac-
tical,’ and he carefully made it “poetical” along with “sym-
bolic” and “allegorical,” adding that such words were to “suck
the meaning out of the inspired record of man’s creation.”

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 7

The margins of nearly every page of the proof bear in
bold pencil strokes “faith,” “trust.” In a discussion of a child
there was margined this fine phrase, “A child into whom the
mother has poured her life, and for whom the father has
labored.”

Another of his marginal corrections is of evolution, saying
that “It obscures all beginnings in the mists of endless ages.”

The Last Correction

The last correction on the proof is on almost the final phrase,
making it read “with hearts full of gratitude to God.”

Mr. Bryan’s hope that what proved to be his final speech
would gain a generous publication throughout the nation
came to pass. The Associated Press and the United Press sent
every word of the 15,000 words of the speech to all of their
clients, while the International News Service used almost half
of the text of the address. [12]

Mr Bryan’s Last Message

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 9

[13]

[Last Message]

William Jennings Bryan

AA sudden decision of the defense to submit the case without argument
and permit a verdict of guilty, prevented the delivery of the address.

Als it presents the issues involved and the reasons for the law prohibit-
ing the teaching in public schools of any hypothesis that makes man a
descendant of any lower form of life, it is here given as prepared by Mr.
Bryan for delivery in court. [— note by Milton]

May It Please the Court,
and Gentlemen of the Jury:

Demosthenes, the greatest of ancient orators, in his “Ora-
tion on The Crown,” the most famous of his speeches,
began by supplicating the favor of all the gods and goddesses
of Greece. If, in a case which involved only his own fame
and fate, he felt justified in petitioning the heathen gods of
his country, surely we, who deal with the momentous is-

sues involved in this case, may well pray to the Ruler of the
Universe for wisdom to guide us in the performance of our
several parts in this historic trial. [14]

10 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

Let me, in the first place, congratulate our cause that cir-
cumstances have committed the trial to a community like this
and entrusted the decision to a jury made up largely of the
yeomanry of the State. The book in issue in this trial contains
on its first page two pictures contrasting the disturbing noises
of a great city with the calm serenity of the country. It is a
tribute that rural life has fully earned.

I appreciate the sturdy honesty and independence of those
who come into daily contact with the earth, who, living, near
to nature, worship nature’s God, and who, dealing with the
myriad mysteries of earth and air, seek to learn from revela-
tion about the Bible’s wonder-working God. I admire the
stern virtues, the vigilance and the patriotism of the class
from which the jury is drawn, and am reminded of the lines
of Scotland’s immortal bard, which, changed but slightly,
would describe your country’s confidence in you:

“O Scotia, my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heav’n ts sent,

Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!

And oh, may Heav’n their simple lives prevent

From luxury’s contagion, weak and vile! [15]

Then, howe’er crowns and coronets be rent,

Ai virtuous populace may rise the while,

And stand, a wall of fire, around their much-loved isle.”

Let us now separate the issues from the misrepresenta-
tions, intentional or unintentional, that have obscured both
the letter and the purpose of the law. This is not an interfer-
ence with freedom of conscience. A teacher can think as he
pleases and worship God as he likes, or refuse to worship
God at all. He can believe in the Bible or discard it; he can
accept Christ or reject Him. This law places no obligations or
restraints upon him. And so with freedom of speech; he can,
so long as he acts as an individual, say anything he likes on
any subject. This law does not violate any rights guaranteed

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 11

by any constitution to any individual. It deals with the defen-
dant, not as an individual, but as an employee, an official or
public servant, paid by the State, and therefore under instruc-
tions from the State.

The right of the State to control the public schools is
affirmed in the recent decision in the Oregon case, which
declares that the State can direct what shall be taught and also
forbid the teaching of anything “manifestly inimical to the
public welfare.” The above decision goes [16] even farther
and declares that the parent not only has the right to guard
the religious welfare of the child, but is in duty bound to
guard it. That decision fits this case exactly. The State had a
right to pass this law, and the law represents the determina-
tion of the parents to guard the religious welfare of their
children.

The Statute Not Conceived in Bigotry

It need hardly be added that this law did not have its origin in
bigotry. It is not trying to force any form of religion on any-
body. The majority is not trying to establish a religion or to
teach it — it is trying to protect itself from the effort of an
insolent minority to force irreligion upon the children under
the guise of teaching science. What right has a little irrespon-
sible oligarchy of self-styled “intellectuals” to demand control
of the schools of the United States, in which twenty-five mil-
lions of children are being educated at an annual expenditure
of nearly two billion of dollars?

Christians must, in every State of the Union, build their
own colleges in which to teach Christianity; it is only simple
justice that atheists, agnostics and unbelievers should build
their own colleges if they want to teach [17] their own reli-
gious views or attack the religious views of others.

The statute is brief and free from ambiguity. It prohib-
its the teaching, in the public schools, of “any theory that

12 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

denies the story of Divine creation as taught in the Bible, and
teaches, instead, that man descended from a lower order of
animals.” The first sentence sets forth the purpose of those
who passed the law. They forbid the teaching of any evolu-
tionary theory that disputes the Bible record of man’s cre-
ation and, to make sure that there shall be no misunderstand-
ing, they place their own interpretations on their language
and specifically forbid the teaching of any theory that makes
man a descendant of any lower form of life.

Evidence Points to Defendant’s Guilt

The evidence shows that defendant taught, in his own
language as well as from a book outlining the theory, that
man descended from lower forms of life. Howard Morgan’s
testimony gives us a definition of evolution that will become
known throughout the world as this case is discussed. How-
ard, a 14-year-old boy, has translated the words of the teacher
and the text-book into language that even a [18] child can
understand. As he recollects it, the defendant said, “‘A little
germ of one-cell organism was formed in the sea; this kept
evolving until it got to be a pretty good-sized animal, then
came on to be a land animal, and it kept evolving, and from
this was man.” There is no room for difference of opinion
here, and there is no need of expert testimony. Here are the
facts, corroborated by another student, Harry Shelton, and
admitted to be true by counsel for the defense. Mr. White,
Superintendent of Schools, testified to the use of Hunter’s
Civic Biology, and to the fact that the defendant not only
admitted teaching evolution, but declared that he could not
teach it without violating the law. Mr. Robinson, the chair-
man of the School Board, corroborated the testimony of
Superintendent White in regard to the defendant’s admissions
and declaration. These are the facts; they are sufficient and
undisputed. A verdict of guilty must follow.

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 13

But the importance of this case requires more. The facts
and arguments presented to you must not only convince you
of the justice of conviction in this case but, while not neces-
sary to a verdict of guilty, they should convince you of the
righteousness of the purpose of the people of the State in
the enactment of [19] this law. The State must speak through
you to the outside world and repel the aspersions cast by the
counsel for the defense upon the intelligence and the en-
lightenment of the citizens of Tennessee. The people of this
State have a high appreciation of the value of education. The
State Constitution testifies to that in its demand that educa-
tion shall be fostered and that science and literature shall be
cherished. The continuing and increasing appropriations for
public instruction furnish abundant proof that Tennessee
places a just estimate upon the learning that is secured in its
schools.

Religion and True Science Do Not Conflict

Religion is not hostile to learning; Christianity has been the
greatest patron learning has ever had. But Christians know
that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” now
just as it has been in the past, and they therefore oppose the
teaching of guesses that encourage godlessness among the
students.

Neither does Tennessee undervalue the service rendered
by science. The Christian men and women of Tennessee
know how deeply mankind is indebted to science for benefits
conferred by the discovery of the laws of [20] nature and by
the designing of machinery for the utilization of these laws.
Give science a fact and it is not only invincible, but it is of
incalculable service to man. If one is entitled to draw from
society in proportion to the service that he renders to soci-
ety, who is able to estimate the reward earned by those who
have given to us the use of steam, the use of electricity, and
enabled us to utilize the weight of water that flows down the

14 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

mountainside? Who will estimate the value of the service
rendered by those who invented the phonograph, the tele-
phone, and the radio? Or, to come more closely to our home
life, how shall we recompense those who gave us the sewing
machine, the harvester, the threshing machine, the tractor,
the automobile, and the method now employed in making
artificial ice? The department of medicine also opens an un-
limited field for invaluable service. Typhoid and yellow fever
are not feared as they once were. Diphtheria and pneumonia
have been robbed of some of their terrors, and a high place
on the scroll of fame still awaits the discoverer of remedies
for arthritis, cancer, tuberculosis and other dread diseases to
which mankind is heir.

Christianity welcomes truth from whatever source it
comes, and is not afraid that any real [21] truth from any
source can interfere with the divine truth that comes by
inspiration from God Himself. It is not scientific truth to
which Christians object, for true science is classified knowl-
edge, and nothing therefore can be scientific unless it is true.

Evolution Is Not Proven

Evolution is not truth; it is merely an hypothesis — it is mil-
lions of guesses strung together. It had not been proven in
the days of Darwin — he expressed astonishment that with
two or three million species it had been impossible to trace
any species to any other species — it had not been proven in
the days of Huxley, and it has not been proven up to today.
It is less than four years ago that Prof. Bateson came all the
way from London to Canada to tell the American scientists
that every effort to trace one species to another had failed
— every one. He said he still had faith in evolution, but had
doubts about the origin of species. But of what value is evo-
lution if it cannot explain the origin of species? While many
scientists accept evolution as if it were a fact, they all admit,

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 15

when questioned, that no explanation has been found as to
how one species developed into another. [22]

Darwin suggested two laws, sexual selection and natural
selection. Sexual selection has been laughed out of the class
room, and natural selection is being abandoned, and no new
explanation is satisfactory even to scientists. Some of the
mote rash advocates of evolution are wont to say that evolu-
tion is as firmly established as the law of gravitation or the
Copernican theory. The absurdity of such a claim is apparent
when we remember that anyone can prove the law of gravita-
tion by throwing a weight into the air, and that anyone can
prove the roundness of the earth by going around it, while
no one can prove evolution to be true in any way whatever.

Chemistry is an insurmountable obstacle in the path of
evolution. It is one of the greatest of the sciences; it sepa-
rates the atoms — isolates them and walks about them, so to
speak. If there were in nature a progressive force, an eternal
urge, Chemistry would find it. But it is not there. All of the
ninety-two original elements are separate and distinct; they
combine in fixed and permanent proportions. Water is HO,
as it has been from the beginning. It was here before life ap-
peared and has never changed; neither can it be shown that
anything else has materially changed. [23]

There is no more reason to believe that man descended
from some inferior animal than there is to believe that a
stately mansion has descended from a small cottage. Resem-
blances ate not proof—they simply put us on inquiry. As one
fact, such as the absence of the accused from the scene of
the murder, outweighs all the resemblances that a thousand
witnesses could swear to, so the inability of science to trace
any one of the millions of species to another species, out-
weighs all the resemblances upon which evolutionists rely to
establish man’s blood relationship with the brutes.

16 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

But while the wisest scientists cannot prove a pushing
power, such as evolution is supposed to be, there is a lift-
ing power that any child can understand. The plant lifts the
mineral up into a higher world, and the animal lifts the plant
up into a world still higher. So, it has been reasoned by anal-
ogy, man rises, not by a power within him, but only when
drawn upward by a higher power. There is a spiritual gravita-
tion that draws all souls toward heaven, just as surely as there
is a physical force that draws all matter on the surface of the
earth towards the earth’s center. Christ is our drawing power;
He said, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men
unto me,” and His [24] promise is being fulfilled daily all over
the world.

It must be remembered that the law under consideration
in this case does not prohibit the teaching of evolution up to
the line that separates man from the lower forms of animal
life. The law might well have gone farther than it does and
prohibit the teaching of evolution in lower forms of life; the
law is a very conservative statement of the people’s opposi-
tion to an anti-Biblical hypothesis. The defendant was not
content to teach what the law permitted; he, for reasons of
his own, persisted in teaching that which was forbidden for
reasons entirely satisfactory to the law-makers.

Misuse of the Term “Evolution”

Most of the people who believe in evolution do not know
what evolution means. One of the science books taught in
the Dayton High School has a chapter on The Evolution of
Machinery. This is a very common misuse of the term. People
speak -of the evolution of the telephone, the automobile, and
the musical instrument. But these are merely illustrations of
man’s power to deal intelligently with inanimate matter; there
is no growth from within in the development of machinery.

[25]

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 17

Equally improper is the use of the word “evolution” to
describe the growth of a plant from a seed, the growth of
a chicken from an egg, or the development of any form of
animal life from a single cell. All these give us a circle, not a
change from one species to another.

Evolution — the evolution involved in this case, and the
only evolution that is a matter of controversy anywhere — is
the evolution taught by defendant, set forth in the books now
prohibited by the new State law, and illustrated in the diagram
printed on page 194 of Hunter’s Czvic Biology. The author es-
timates the number of species in the animal kingdom at five
hundred and eighteen thousand nine hundred. These are di-
vided into eighteen classes, and each class is indicated on the
diagram by a circle, proportionate in size to the number of
species in each class and attached by a stem to the trunk of
the tree. It begins with Protozoa and ends with the mammals.
Passing over the classes with which the average man is un-
familiar, let me call your attention to a few of the larger and
better known groups. The insects are numbered at three hun-
dred and sixty thousand, over two-thirds of the total number
of species in the animal world. The fishes are [26] numbered
at thirteen thousand, the amphibians at fourteen hundred,
the reptiles at thirty-five hundred, and the birds at thirteen
thousand, while thirty-five hundred mammals are crowded to-
gether in a little circle that is barely higher than the bird circle.
No circle is reserved for man alone. He is, according to the
diagram, shut up in the little circle entitled “Mammals,” with
thirty-four hundred and ninety-nine other species of mam-
mals. Does it not seem a little unfair not to distinguish be-
tween man and lower forms of life? What shall we say of the
intelligence, not to say religion, of those who are so particular
to distinguish between fishes and reptiles and birds, but put a
man with an immortal soul in the same citcle with the wolf,
the hyena and the skunk? What must be the impression made
upon children by such a degradation of man?

18 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

In the preface of this book the author explains that it is
for children, and adds that “the boy or girl of average abil-
ity upon admission to the secondary school is not a thinking
individual.” Whatever may be said in favor of teaching evolu-
tion to adults, it surely is not proper to teach it to children
who are not yet able to think. [27]

Evolutionist “Proofs” Are Only Guesses.

The evolutionist does not undertake to tell us how Protozoa,
moved by interior and resident forces, sent life up through all
the various species, and cannot prove that there was actually
any such compelling power at all. And yet, the school chil-
dren are asked to accept their guesses and build a philosophy
of life upon them. If it were not so serious a matter, one
might be tempted to speculate upon the various degrees of
relationship that, according to evolutionists, exist between
man and other forms of life. It might require some very nice
calculation to determine at what degree of relationship the
killing of a relative ceases to be murder and the eating of
one’s kin ceases to be cannibalism.

But it is not a laughing matter when one considers that
evolution not only offers no suggestions as to a Creator but
tends to put the creative act so far away as to cast doubt
upon creation itself. And, while it is shaking faith in God as a
beginning, it is also creating doubt as to a heaven at the end
of life. Evolutionists do not feel that it is incumbent upon
them to show how life began or at what point in their long-
drawn-out scheme of changing species [28] man became
endowed with hope and promise of immortal life. God may
be a matter of indifference to the evolutionists, and a life be-
yond may have no charm for them, but the mass of mankind
will continue to worship their Creator and continue to find
comfort in the promise of their Saviour that He has gone to
prepare a place for them. Christ has made of death a narrow,

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 19

star-lit strip between the companionship of yesterday and
the reunion of tomorrow; evolution strikes out the stars and
deepens the gloom that enshrouds the tomb.

If the results of evolution were unimportant, one might
require less proof in support of the hypothesis, but before
accepting a new philosophy of life, built upon a materialistic
foundation, we have reason to demand something more than
guesses; “we may well suppose” is not a sufficient substitute
for “Thus saith the Lord.”

If you, your honor, and you, gentlemen of the jury, would
have an understanding of the sentiment that lies back of the
statute against the teaching of evolution, please consider the
facts that I shall now present to you. First, as to the animals
to which evolutionists would have us trace our ancestry. [29]

Darwin’s “Family Tree”

The following is Darwin’s family tree, as you will find it set
forth on pages 180-181 of his Descent of Man:

“The most ancient progenitors in the kingdom

of Vertebrata, at which we ate able to obtain an
obscure glance, apparently consisted of a group
of marine animals, resembling the larvae of exist-
ing ascidians. These animals probably gave rise

to a group of fishes, as lowly organized as the
lancelot; and from these the Ganoids, and other
fishes like the Lepidosiren, must have been devel-
oped. From such fish a very small advance would
carry us on to the amphibians. We have seen that
birds and reptiles were once intimately connected
together; and the Monotremata now connect
mammals with reptiles in a slight degree. But no
one can at present say by what line of descent the
three higher and related classes, namely, mammals,
birds, and reptiles, were derived from the two
lower vertebrate classes, namely amphibians and
fishes. In the class of mammals the steps are not

20 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

difficult to conceive which led from the ancient
Monotremata to the ancient Marsupials; and from
these to the early progenitors of the placental
mammals. We may thus ascent to the Lemuridae;
and the interval is not very wide from these to the
Simiadae. The Simiadae then branched off into
two great stems, the New World and Old World
monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period,
Man, the wonder and glory of the Universe, pro-
ceeded. Thus we have given to man a pedigree of
prodigious [30] length, but not, it may be said, of
noble quality.” (Ed. 1874, Hurst).

Note the words implying uncertainty; “obscure glance,”

99 66 99 66.

“apparently,
gree,” and “conceive.”

resembling,” “must have been,” “slight de-

Darwin, on page 171 of the same book, tries to locate his
first man — that is, the first man to come down out of the
trees — in Africa. After leaving man in company with goril-
las and chimpanzees, he says, “But it is useless to speculate
on this subject.” If he had only thought of this earlier, the
world might have been spared much of the speculation that
his brute hypothesis has excited.

On page 79 Darwin gives some fanciful reasons for
believing that man is more likely to have descended from
the chimpanzee than from the gorilla. His speculations are
an excellent illustration of the effect that the evolutionary
hypothesis has in cultivating the imagination. Prof. J. Arthur
Thomson says that the “idea of evolution is the most potent
thought economizing formula the world has yet known.” It is
more than that; it dispenses with thinking entirely and relies
on the imagination.

On page 141 Darwin attempts to trace the [31] mind of
man back to the mind of lower animals. On pages 113 and
114 he endeavors to trace man’s moral nature back to the
animals. It is all animal — animal — animal, with never a
thought of God or of religion.

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 21

Evolution Shakes Faith in Holy Writ

Our first indictment against evolution is that it disputes the
truth of the Bible account of man’s creation and shakes faith
in the Bible as the Word of God. This indictment we prove
by comparing the processes described as evolutionary with
the text of Genesis. It is [sic] not only contradicts the Mosaic
record as to the beginning of human life, but it disputes the
Bible doctrine of reproduction according to kind — the
greatest scientific principle known.

Evolution Disputes the Bible’s Vital Truth

Our second indictment is that the evolutionary hypothesis,
carried to its logical conclusion, disputes every vital truth

of the Bible. Its tendency, natural, if not inevitable, is to

lead those who really accept it, first to agnosticism and then
to atheism. Evolutionists attack the truth of the Bible, not
openly at first, but by [32] using weazel-words like “poetical,”
“symbolical” and “allegorical” to suck the meaning out [of]
the inspired record of man’s creation.

We call as our first witness Charles Darwin. He began life
a Christian. On page 39, Vol. I of the Life and Letters of Charles
Darwin, by his son, Francis Darwin, he says, speaking of the
period from 1828 to 1831, “I did not then in the least doubt
the strict and literal truth of every word in the Bible.” On
page 412 of Vol. II of the same publication, he says, “When
I was collecting facts for The Origin my belief in what is called
a personal God was as firm as that of Dr. Pusey himself.” It
may be a surprise to your honor and to you, gentlemen of the
jury, as it was to me, to learn that Darwin spent three years at
Cambridge studying for the ministry.

This was Darwin as a young man, before he came under
the influence of the doctrine that man came from a lower
order of animals. The change wrought in his religious views
will be found in a letter written to a German youth in 1879,

22 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

and printed on page 277 of Vol. I of the Life and Letters above
referred to. The letter begins: “I am much engaged, an old
man, and out of health, and I cannot spare time to answer
your questions fully — nor indeed can [33] they be answered.
- Science has nothing to do with Christ, except in so far as the
habit of scientific research makes a man cautious in admitting
evidence. For myself, I do not believe that there ever has been
any revelation. As for a future life, every man must judge for
himself between conflicting vague probabilities.”

Note that “science has nothing to do with Christ, except in
so far as the habit of scientific research makes a man cautious
in admitting evidence.” Stated plainly, that simply means that
“the habit of scientific research” makes one cautious in ac-
cepting the only evidence that we have of Christ’s existence,
mission, teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection, namely
the evidence found in the Bible. To make this interpretation
of his words the only possible one, he adds, “For myself, I
do not believe that there ever has been any revelation.” In
rejecting the Bible as a revelation from God, he rejects the
Bible’s conception of God and he rejects also the supernatu-
ral Christ of whom the Bible, and the Bible alone, tells. And,
it will be observed, he refuses to express any opinion as to a
future life. [34]

What His Hypothesis Did for Darwin

Now let us follow with his son’s exposition of his father’s
views as they are given in extracts from a biography written in
1876. Here is Darwin’s language as quoted by his son:

“During these two years (October, 1838, to Janu-
ary, 1839) I was led to think much about religion.
Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox
and I remember being heartily laughed at by sev-
eral of the officers (though themselves orthodox)
for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority
on some point of morality. When thus reflecting, I

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 23

felt compelled to look for a First Cause, having an
intelligent mind in some degree analogous to man;
and I deserved to be called an atheist. This conclu-
sion was strong in my mind about the time, as far
as I can remember, when I wrote The Origin of
Species; it is since that time that it has very gradu-
ally, with many fluctuations, become weaker. But
then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which
has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind
as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be
trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?

“T cannot pretend to throw the least light on
such abstruse problems. The mystery of the
beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for
one must be content to remain an agnostic.”

When Darwin entered upon his scientific [35] career he
was “quite orthodox and quoted the Bible as an unanswerable
authority on some point of morality.” Even when he wrote
The Origin of Species, the thought of “a First Cause, having
an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to man” was
strong in his mind. It was after that time that “very gradually,
with many fluctuations,” his belief in God became weaker.
He traces this decline for us and concludes by telling us that
he cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse
problems — the religious problems above referred to. Then
comes the flat statement that he “must be content to remain
an agnostic”; and to make clear what he means by the word,
agnostic, he says that “the mystery of the beginning of all
things is insoluble by us” — not by him alone, but by every-
body. Here we have the effect of evolution upon its most
distinguished exponent; it led him from an orthodox Chris-
tian, believing every word of the Bible and in a personal God,
down and down and down to helpless and hopeless agnosti-
cism.

But there is one sentence upon which I reserved comment
— it throws light upon his downward pathway. “Then arises

24 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

the doubt, can the mind of man which has, as I fully believe,
been developed from a mind as low as [36] that possessed
by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such grand
conclusions?”

Here is the explanation; he drags man down to the brute
level, and then, judging man by brute standards, he questions
whether man’s mind can be trusted to deal with God and im-
mortality!

How can any teacher tell his students that evolution does
not tend to destroy his religious faith? How can an honest
teacher conceal from his students the effect of evolution
upon Darwin himself? And is it not stranger still that preach-
ers who advocate evolution never speak of Darwin’s loss of
faith, due to his belief in evolution? The parents of Tennes-
see have reason enough to fear the effect of evolution on the
minds of their children. Belief in evolution cannot bring to
those who hold such a belief any compensation for the loss
of faith in God, trust in the Bible, and belief in the super-
natural character of Christ. It is belief in evolution that has
caused so many scientists and so many Christians to reject
the miracles of the Bible, and then give up, one after another,
every vital truth of Christianity. They finally cease to pray and
sunder the tie that binds them to their Heavenly Father. [37]

Miracles Possible with God

A miracle should not be a stumbling block to any one. It
raises but three questions:

First: Could God perform a miracle? Yes, the God who
created the universe can do anything He wants to with it. He
can temporarily suspend any law that He has made or He may
employ higher laws that we do not understand.

Second: Would God perform a miracle? To answer that
question in the negative one would have to know more about

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 25

God’s plans and purposes than a finite mind can know, and
yet some are so wedded to evolution that they deny that God
would perform a miracle merely because a miracle is inconsis-
tent with evolution.

If we believe that God could perform a miracle and de-
sired to do so, we ate prepared to consider with open mind
the third question, namely — did God perform the miracles
recorded in the Bible? The same evidence that establishes the
authority of the Bible establishes the truth of the record of
miracles performed.

Now let me read to the honorable court and to you, gen-
tlemen of the jury, one of the most pathetic confessions that
has come to my notice. [38] George John Romanes, a distin-
guished biologist, sometimes called the successor of Darwin,
was prominent enough to be given extended space in both
the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Encyclopedia Americana. Like
Darwin, he was reared in the orthodox faith, and like Darwin,
was led away from it by evolution (see Thoughts on Religion,
page 180). For twenty-five years he could not pray. Soon after
he became an agnostic, he wrote a book entitled, A Candid
Explanation of Theism, publishing it under an assumed name,
“Physicus.” In this book (see page 29, Thoughts on Religion), he
says:

“And forasmuch as I am far from being able to
agree with those who affirm that the twilight
doctrine of the ‘new faith’ is a desirable substitute
for the waning splendor of ‘the old, I am not
ashamed to confess that with this virtual nega-
tion of God the universe to me has lost its soul
of loveliness; and although from henceforth the
precept to ‘work while it is day’ will doubtless but
gain an intensified force from the terribly intensi-
fied meaning of the words that ‘the night cometh
when no man can work, yet when at times I think,
as think at times I must, of the appalling contrast
between the hallowed glory of that creed which

26 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

once was mine, and the lonely mystery of exis-
tence as now I find it — at such times I shall ever
feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of
which my nature is susceptible.” [39]

Do these evolutionists stop to think of the crime they
commit when they take faith out of the hearts of men and
women and lead them out into a starless night? What plea-
sure can they find in robbing a human being of “the hal-
lowed glory of that creed” that Romanes once cherished, and
in substituting “the lonely mystery of existence” as he found
it? Can the fathers and mothers of Tennessee be blamed for
trying to protect their children from such a tragedy?

If anyone has been led to complain of the severity of the
punishment that hangs over the defendant, let him compare
this crime and its mild punishment with the crimes for which
a greater punishment is prescribed. What is the taking of a
few dollars from one in day or night in comparison with the
crime of leading one away from God and away from Christ?

“Offending” the Little Ones
g

Shakespeare regards the robbing one of his good name as
much mote grave than the stealing of his purse. But we have
a higher authority than Shakespeare to invoke in this connec-
tion. He who spake as never man spake, thus describes the
crimes that are committed [40]

against the young, “It is impossible but that offences will
come: but woe unto him through whom they come. It were
better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck,
and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of
these little ones.”

Christ did not overdraw the picture. Who is able to set a
ptice upon the life of a child — a child into whom a mother
has poured her life and for whom a father has labored? What

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 27

may a noble life mean to the child itself, to the parents, and to
the world?

And it must be remembered that we can measure the
effect on only that part of life which is spent on earth; we
have no way of calculating the effect on that infinite circle
of life of which existence here is but a small arc. The soul is
immortal and religion deals with the soul; the logical effect
of the evolutionary hypothesis is to undermine religion and
thus affect the soul. I recently received a list of questions
that were to be discussed in a prominent Eastern school for
women. The second question in the list read, “Is religion
an obsolescent function that should be allowed to atrophy
quietly, without arousing the passionate prejudice of outworn
superstition?” The real attack of evolution, it will be seen, is
not [41] upon orthodox Christianity, or even upon Christian-
ity, but upon religion — the most basic fact in man’s existence
and the most practical thing in life.

“Higher” Culture and Unbelief

But I have some more evidence of the effect of evolution
upon the life of those who accept it and try to harmonize
their thought with it.

James H. Leuba, a Professor of Psychology at Bryn Mawr
College, Pennsylvania, published a few years ago, a book en-
titled Beef in God and Immortality. In this book he relates how
he secured the opinions of scientists as to the existence of a
personal God and a personal immortality. He used a volume
entitled American Men of Science, which, he says, included the
names of “practically every American who may properly be
called a scientist.” There were fifty-five hundred names in the
book. He selected one thousand names as representative of
the fifty-five hundred, and addressed them personally. Most
of them, he said, were teachers in schools of higher learn-
ing. The names were kept confidential. Upon the answers

28 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

received, he asserts that over half of them doubt or deny the
existence of a personal [42] God and a personal immortality,
and he asserts that unbelief increases in proportion to promi-
nence, the percentage of unbelief being greatest among the
most prominent. Among biologists, believers in a personal
God numbered less than thirty-one per cent. while believ-

ers in a personal immortality numbered only thirty-seven per
cent.

He also questioned the students in nine colleges of high
rank and from one thousand answers received, ninety-seven
per cent of which were from students between eighteen and
twenty, he found that unbelief increased from fifteen per cent
in the Freshman class up to forty to forty-five per cent among
the men who graduated. On page 280 of this book, we read,
“The students’ statistics show that young people enter col-
lege, possessed of the beliefs still accepted, more or less
perfunctorily, in the average home of the land, and gradually
abandon the cardinal Christian beliefs.” This change from be-
lief to unbelief he attributes to the influence of the persons
“of high culture under whom they studied.”

The people of Tennessee have been patient enough;
they acted none too soon. How can they expect to protect
society, and even the Church, from the deadening influence
of agnosticism [43] and atheism if they permit the teachers
employed by taxation to poison the minds of the youth with
this destructive doctrine? And remember that the law has not
heretofore required the writing of the word “poison” on poi-
sonous doctrines. The bodies of our people are so valuable
that druggists and physicians must be careful to properly label
all poisons; why not be as careful to protect the spiritual life
of our people from the poisons that kill the soul?

There is a test that is sometimes used to ascertain whether
one suspected of mental infirmity is really insane. He is
put into a tank of water and told to dip the tank dry while

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 29

a stream of water flows into the tank. If he has not sense
enough to turn off the stream, he is adjudged insane. Can
parents justify themselves if, knowing the effect of belief in
evolution, they permit irreligious teachers to inject skepticism
and infidelity into the minds of their children?

The Effect of Bad Doctrine

Do bad doctrines corrupt the morals of students? We have
a case in point. Mr. Darrow, one of the most distinguished
criminal lawyers in our land, was engaged about a year ago
in [44] defending two rich men’s sons who were on trial for
as dastardly a murder as was ever committed. The older one,
“Babe” Leopold, was a brilliant student, nineteen years old.
He was an evolutionist and an atheist. He was also a follower
of Nietzsche, whose books he had devoured and whose
philosophy he had adopted. Mr. Darrow made a plea for
him, based upon the influence that Nietzsche’s philosophy
had exerted upon the boy’s mind. Here are extracts from his
speech:

“Babe took to philosophy.... He grew up in this
way; he became enamoured of the philosophy

of Nietzsche. Your honor, I have read almost
everything that Nietzsche ever wrote. A man of
wonderful intellect; the most original philosopher
of the last century. A man who made a deeper
imprint on philosophy than any other man within
a hundred years, whether right or wrong, More
books have been written about him than prob-
ably all the rest of the philosophers in a hundred
years. More college professors have talked about
him. In a way, he has reached more people, and
still he has been a philosopher of what we might
call the intellectual cult.

“He wrote one book called Beyond the Good and
Evil, which was a criticism of all moral precepts,
as we understand them, and a treatise that the

30

Mr Bryan’s Last Message

intelligent man was beyond good and evil, that the
laws for good and the laws for evil did not apply
to anybody who approached the superman. He
wrote on the will to power. [45]

“T have just made a few short extracts from
Nietzsche that show the things that he (Leopold)
has read, and these ate short and almost taken at
random. It is not how this would affect you. It
is not how it would affect me. The question is,
how it would affect the impressionable, visionary,
dreamy mind of a boy — a boy who should never
have seen it — too early for him.

“Here is what Nietzsche says : “Why so soft,
oh, my brethren? Why so soft, so unresisting and
yielding? Why is there so much disavowal and ab-
negation in your heart? Why is there so little fate
in your looks? For all creators are hard and it must
seem blessedness unto you to press your hand
upon millenniums and upon wax. This new table,
oh, my brethren, I put over you: Become hard. To
be obsessed by moral consideration presupposes
a very low grade of intellect. We should substitute
for morality the will to our own end, and conse-
quently to the means to accomplish that. A great
man, a man whom nature has built up and invent-
ed in a grand style, is colder, harder, less cautious
and more free from the fear of public opinion. He
does not possess the virtues which are compat-
ible with respectability, with being respected, nor
any of those things which are counted among the
virtues of the herd”

“The superman, a creation of Nietzsche, has
permeated every college and university in the civi-
lized world. There is not any university anywhere
where the professor is not familiar with Nietzsche,
not one. ... Some believe it and some do not be-
lieve it. Some read it as I do and take it as a theory,
a dream, a vision, mixed with good and bad, but
not in any way related to [46] human life. Some

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 31

take it seriously. ... There is not a university in the
world of any high standing where the professors
do not tell you about Nietzsche and discuss him,
ot where the books are not there.

“If this boy is to blame for this, where did
he get it? Is there any blame attached because
somebody took Nietzsche’s philosophy seriously
and fashioned his life up on it? And there is no
question in this case but what that is true. Then
who is to blame? The university would be more to
blame than he is; the scholars of the world would
be more to blame than he is. The publishers of
the world ... are more to blame than he is. Your
honor, it is hardly fair to hang a nineteen-year-old
boy for the philosophy that was taught him at the
university. It does not meet my ideas of justice
and fairness to visit upon his head the philosophy
that has been taught by university men for twenty-
five years.”

In fairness to Mr. Darrow, I think I ought to quote two
more paragraphs. After this bold attempt to excuse the
student on the ground that he was transformed from a well-
meaning youth into a murderer by the philosophy of an athe-
ist, and on the further ground that this philosophy was in the
libraries of all the colleges and discussed by the professors
— some adopting the philosophy and some rejecting it —
on these two grounds, he denies that the boy should be held
responsible for the taking of human life. He charges that the
scholars in [47] the universities were more responsible than
the boy, and that the universities were more responsible than
the boy, because they furnished such books to the students,
and then he proceeds to exonerate the universities and the
scholars, leaving nobody responsible. Here is Mr. Darrow’s

language:
“Now, I do not want to be misunderstood about

this. Even for the sake of saving the lives of my
clients, I do not want to be dishonest and tell the

32 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

court something that I do not honestly think in
this case. I do not think that the universities ate to
blame. I do not think they should be held respon-
sible. I do think, however, that they are too large,
and that they should keep a closer watch, if pos-
sible, upon the individual.

“But you cannot destroy thought because, for-
sooth, some brain may be deranged by thought. It
is the duty of the university, as I conceive it, to be
the great storehouse of the wisdom of the ages,
and to have its students come there and learn and
choose. I have no doubt but what it has meant the
death of many; but that we cannot help.”

A Sinister Flower

This is a damnable philosophy, and yet it is the flower that
blooms on the stalk of evolution. Mr. Darrow thinks the
universities are in duty bound to feed out this poisonous stuff
to their students, and when the students become [48] stupe-
fied — by it and commit murder, neither they nor the uni-
versities are to blame. I am sure, your honor and gentlemen
of the jury, that you agree with me when I protest against the
adoption of any such a philosophy in the state of Tennessee.
A criminal is not relieved from responsibility merely because
he found Nietzsche’s philosophy in a library which ought not
to contain it. Neither is the university guiltless if it permits
such corrupting nourishment to be fed to the souls that are
entrusted to its care. But, go a step farther, would the State
be blameless if it permitted the universities under its control
to be turned into training schools for murderers? When you
get back to the root of this question, you will find that the
legislature not only had a right to protect the students from
the evolutionary hypothesis but was in duty bound to do so.

While on this subject, let me call your attention to another
proposition embodied in Mr. Darrow’s speech. He said that
Dicky Loeb, the younger boy, had read trashy novels, of the

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 33

blood-and-thunder sort. He even went so far as to commend
an Illinois statute which forbids minors reading stories of
crime. Here is what Mr. Darrow said: [49]

“We have a statute in this State, passed only -ast
year, if I recall it, which forbids minors reading
story of crime. Why? There is only one reason;
because the legislature in its wisdom thought it
would have a tendency to produce these thoughts
and this life in the boys who read them.”

If Hlinois can protect her boys, why cannot this State pro-
tect the boys of Tennessee? Are the boys of Illinois any more
precious than yours?

But to return to the philosophy of an evolutionist. Mr.
Darrow said : “I say to you seriously that the parents of
Dicky Loeb are more responsible than he, and yet few boys
had better parents.” ... Again, he says, “I know that one of
two things happened to this boy; that this terrible crime was
inherent in his organism, and came from some ancestor, or
that it came through his education and his training after he
was born.” He thinks the boy was not responsible for any-
thing; his guilt was due, according to this philosophy, either to
heredity or to environment.

But let me complete Mr. Darrow’s philosophy based on
evolution. He says: “I do not know what remote ancestor may
have sent down the seed that corrupted him, and I do not
know through how many ancestors it may have [50] passed
until it reached Dicky Loeb. All I know is, it is true, and there
is not a biologist in the world who will not say I am right.”

Psychologists, who build upon the evolutionary hypoth-
esis, teach that man is nothing but a bundle of characteristics
inherited from brute ancestors. That is the philosophy which
Mr. Darrow applied in this celebrated criminal case. “Some
remote ancestot — he does not know how remote — “sent
down the seed that corrupted him.” You cannot punish the

34 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

ancestor—he is not only dead but, according to the evolu-
tionists, he was a brute and may have lived a million years
ago. And he says that all the biologists agree with him — no
wonder so small a proportion of the biologists, according to
Leuba, believe in a personal God.

This is the quintessence of evolution, distilled for us by
one who follows that doctrine to its logical conclusion. Ana-
lyze this dogma of darkness and death. Evolutionists say that
back in the twilight of life a beast, name and nature unknown,
planted a murderous seed and that the impulse that originated
in that seed throbs forever in the blood of the brute’s descen-
dants, inspiring killings innumerable, for which the murder-
ers are not responsible because coerced by a fate fixed by
the laws of [51] heredity! It is an insult to reason and shocks
the heart. That doctrine is as deadly as leprosy; it may aid a
lawyer in a criminal case, but it would, if generally adopted,
destroy all sense of responsibility and menace the morals of
the world. A brute, they say, can predestine a man to crime,
and yet they deny that God incarnate in the flesh can release
a human being from this bondage or save him from ancestral
sins. No more repulsive doctrine was ever proclaimed by mail;
if all the biologists of the world teach this doctrine—as Mr.
Darrow says they do—then may heaven defend the youth of
out land from their impious babblings.

Evolution Promotes Trifling Speculation

Our third indictment against evolution is that it diverts atten-
tion from pressing problems of great importance to trifling
speculation. While one evolutionist is trying to imagine what
happened in the dim past, another is trying to pry open the
door of the distant future. One recently grew eloquent over
ancient worms, and another predicted that seventy-five thou-
sand years hence everyone will be bald and toothless. Both
those who endeavor to clothe our remote ancestors with hair
and those who [52] endeavor to remove the hair from the

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 35

heads of our remote descendants ignore the present with its
imperative demands. The science of “How to Live” is the
most important of all the sciences. It is desirable to know

the physical sciences, but it is necessary to know how to live.
Christians desire that their children shall be taught all the sci-
ences, but they do not want them to lose sight of the Rock of
Ages while they study the age of the rocks; neither do they
desire them to become so absorbed in measuring the distance
between the stars that they will forget Him who holds the
stats in His hand.

While not more than two per cent of our population are
college graduates, these, because of enlarged powers, need a
“Heavenly Vision” even more than those less learned, both
for their own restraint and to assure society that their en-
larged powers will be used for the benefit of society and not
against the public welfare.

Evolution is deadening the spiritual life of a multitude
of students. Christians do not desire less education, but they
desire that religion shall be entwined with learning so that
our boys and girls will return from college with their hearts
aflame with love of God and love [53] of fellow-men, and
prepared to lead in the altruistic work that the world so sorely
needs. The cry in the business world, in the industrial world,
in the professional world, in the political world — even in the
religious world — is for consecrated talents — for ability plus
a passion for service.

Evolution Chills Enthusiasm

Our fourth indictment against the evolutionary hypothesis is
that, by paralyzing the hope of reform, it discourages those
who labor for the improvement of man’s condition. Every
upward-looking man or woman seeks to lift the level upon
which mankind stands, and they trust that they will see benef-
icent changes during the brief span of their own lives. Evolu-

36 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

tion chills their enthusiasm by substituting aeons for years.
It obscures all beginnings in the mists of endless ages. It is
represented as a cold and heartless process, beginning with
time and ending in eternity, and acting so slowly that even
the rocks cannot preserve a record of the imaginary changes
through which it is credited with having carried an original
germ of life that appeared sometime from somewhere. Its
only program for man is scientific breeding, a system under
which a few [54]

supposedly superior intellects, self-appointed, would direct
the mating and the movements of the mass of mankind—
an impossible system ! Evolution, disputing the miracle, and
ignoring the spiritual in life, has no place for the regeneration
of the individual. It recognizes no cry of repentance and
scoffs at the doctrine that one can be born again.

It is thus the intolerant and unrelenting enemy of the only
process that can redeem society through the redemption of
the individual. An evolutionist would never write such a story
as “The Prodigal Son”; it contradicts the whole theory of
evolution. The two sons inherited from the same parents and,
through their parents, from the same ancestors, proximate
and remote. And these sons were reared at the same fireside
and were surrounded by the same environment during all
the days of their youth; and yet they were different. If Mr.
Darrow is correct in the theory applied to Loeb, namely, that
his crime was due either to inheritance or to environment,
how will he explain the difference between the elder brother
and the wayward son? The evolutionist may understand from
observation, if not by experience, even though he cannot
explain, why one of these boys was guilty of every immoral-
ity, squandered [55] the money that the father had laboriously
earned, and brought disgrace upon the family name; but his
theory does not explain why a wicked young man underwent
a change of heart, confessed his sin, and begged for forgive-
ness. And because the evolutionists cannot understand this

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 37

fact, one of the most important in the human life, he can-
not understand the infinite love of the Heavenly Father who
stands ready to welcome home any repentant sinner, no mat-
ter how far he has wandered, how often he has fallen, or how
deep he has sunk in sin.

Your honor has quoted from a wonderful poem written
by a great Tennessee poet, Walter Malone. I venture to quote
another stanza which puts into exquisite language the new
opportunity which a merciful God gives to every one who
will turn from sin to righteousness.

“Though deep in mire,

wring not your hands and weep;

I lend my arm to all who say, T can.’

No shame-faced outcast ever sank so deep
But he might rise and be again a man.”

There ate no lines like these in all that evolutionists have
ever written. Darwin says that science has nothing to do with
the Christ who [56] taught the spirit embodied in the words
of Walter Malone, and yet this spirit is the only hope of hu-
man progress. A heart can be changed in the twinkling of an
eye and a change in the life follows a change in the heart. If
one heart can be changed, it is possible that many hearts can
be changed, and if many hearts can be changed it is possible
that all hearts can be changed — that a world can be born in
a day. It is this fact that inspires all who labor for man’s bet-
terment. It is because Christians believe in individual regen-
eration and in the regeneration of society through the regen-
eration of individuals that they pray, “Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.” Evolution makes
a mockery of the Lord’s Prayer!

To interpret the words to mean that the improvement de-
sired must come slowly through unfolding ages, — a process
with which each generation could have little to do — is to
defer hope, and hope deferred maketh the heart sick.

38 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

Evolution Would Eliminate Love

Our fifth indictment of the evolutionary hypothesis is that, if
taken seriously and made the basis of a philosophy of life, it
would eliminate [57] love and carry man back to a struggle of
tooth and claw. The Christians who have allowed themselves
to be deceived into believing that evolution is a beneficent, or
even a rational process, have been associating with those who
either do not understand its implications or dare not avow
their knowledge of these implications. Let me give you some
authority on this subject. I will begin with Darwin, the high
priest of evolution, to whom all evolutionists bow.

On pages 149 and 150, in The Descent of Man, already te-
ferred to, he says:

“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon
eliminated; and those that survive commonly
exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized
men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check
the process of elimination; we build asylums for
the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we insti-
tute poor laws; and our medical men exert their
utmost skill to save the life of everyone to the last
moment. There is reason to believe that vaccina-
tion has preserved thousands who from a weak
constitution would formerly have succumbed to
smallpox. Thus the weak members of civilized
society propagate their kind. No one who has
attended to the breeding of domestic animals will
doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race
of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care,
or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration
of a domestic race; but, excepting in the case of
man himself, [58] hardly anyone is so ignorant as
to allow his worst animals to breed.

“The aid which we feel impelled to give to the
helpless is mainly an incidental result of the in-
stinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired
as part of the social instincts, but subsequently

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 39

rendered, in the manner previously indicated,
more tender and more widely diffused. Now could
we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard
reason, without deterioration in the noblest part
of our nature? ... We must therefore bear the un-
doubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and
propagating their kind.”

Darwin reveals the barbarous sentiment that runs through
evolution and dwarfs the moral nature of those who become
obsessed with it. Let us analyze the quotation just given. Dar-
win speaks with approval of the savage custom of eliminating
the weak so that only the strong will survive and complains
that “we civilized men do our utmost to check the process of
elimination.” How inhuman such a doctrine as this! He thinks
it injurious to “build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed,
and the sick,” or to care for the poor. Even the medical men
come in for criticism because they “exert their utmost skill to
save the life of everyone to the last moment.” And then note
his hostility to vaccination because it has “preserved thou-
sands who, from a weak constitution [59] would, but for vac-
cination, have succumbed to smallpox!” All of the sympathet-
ic activities of civilized society are condemned because they
enable “the weak members to propagate their kind.” Then he
drags mankind down to the level of the brute and compares
the freedom given to man unfavorably with the restraint that
we put on barnyard beasts.

The second paragraph of the above quotation shows that
his kindly heart rebelled against the cruelty of his own doc-
trine. He says that we “feel impelled to give to the helpless,”
although he traces it to a sympathy which he thinks is devel-
oped by evolution; he even admits that we could not check
this sympathy “even at the urging of hard reason, without
deterioration of the noblest part of our nature.” “We must
therefore beat” what he regards as “the undoubtedly bad
effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind.”
Could any doctrine be more destructive of civilization? And

40 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

what a commentary on evolution! He wants us to believe that
evolution develops a human sympathy that finally becomes

so tender that it repudiates the law that created it and thus
invites a return to a level where the extinguishing of pity and
sympathy [60] will permit the brutal instincts to again do their
progressive (?) work!

“Evolution is a Bloody Business”

Let no one think that this acceptance of barbarism as the
basic principle of evolution died with Darwin. Within three
yeats a book has appeared whose author is even more frankly
brutal than Darwin. The book is entitled Te New Decalogue
of Science and has attracted wide attention. One of our most
reputable magazines has recently printed an article by him
defining the religion of a scientist. In his preface he acknowl-
edges indebtedness to twenty-one prominent scientists and
educators, nearly all of them “doctors” and “professors.”
One of them, who has recently been elevated to the head of
a great state university, read the manuscript over twice “and
made many invaluable suggestions.” The author describes
Nietzsche who, according to Mr. Darrow, made a murderer
out of Babe Leopold, as “the bravest soul since Jesus.” He
admits that Nietzsche was “gloriously wrong,’ not certainly,
but “perhaps,” “in many details of technical knowledge,” but
he affirms that Nietzsche was “gloriously right in his fearless
questioning of the universe and of his own soul.” [61]

In another place, the author says, “Most of our morals
today are jungle products,” and then he affirms that “it would
be safer, biologically, if they were more so now.” After these
two samples of his views, you will not be surprised when I
read you the following (see page 34):

“Evolution is a bloody business, but civiliza-
tion tries to make it a pink tea. Barbarism is the
only process by which man has ever organically
progressed, and civilization is the only process

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 41

by which he has ever organically declined. Civi-
lization is the most dangerous enterprise upon
which man ever set out. For when you take man
out of the bloody, brutal, but beneficent, hand of
natural selection you place him at once in the soft,
perfumed, daintily gloved, but far more dangerous,
hand of artificial selection. And, unless you call
science to your aid and make this artificial selec-
tion as efficient as the rude methods of nature,
you bungle the whole task.”

This aspect of evolution may amaze some of the ministers
who have not been admitted to the inner circle of the icono-
clasts whose theories menace all the ideals of civilized society.
Do these ministers know that “evolution is a bloody busi-
ness”? Do they know that “barbarism [62] is the only process
by which man has ever organically progressed’’? And that
“civilization is the only process by which he has ever organi-
cally declined’? Do they know that “the bloody, brutal hand
of natural selection” is “beneficent” ? And that the “artificial
selection” found in civilization is “dangerous”? What shall we
think of the distinguished educators and scientists who read
the manuscript before publication and did not protest against
this pagan doctrine?

Kidd on Darwin and Nietzsche

To show that this is a world-wide matter, I now quote from a
book issued from the press in 1918, seven years ago. The title
of the book is The Science of Power, and its author, Benjamin
Kidd, being an Englishman, could not have had any national
prejudice against Darwin. On pages 46 and 47 we find Kidd’s
interpretation of evolution:

“Darwin’s presentation of the evolution of the
world as the product of natural selection in never-
ceasing wat — as a product, that is to say, of a
struggle in which the individual efficient in the
fieht for his own interests was always the winning

42 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

type — touched the profoundest depths of the
psychology of the West. The idea seemed to pres-
ent the whole order of progress in the [63] world
as the result of a purely mechanical and material-
istic process resting on force. In so doing it was a
conception which reached the springs of that he-
redity born of the unmeasured ages of conquest
out of which the Western mind has come. Within
half a century The Origin of Species had become
the bible of the doctrine of the omnipotence of
force.”

Kidd goes so far as to charge that “Nietzsche’s teaching
represented the interpretation of the popular Darwinism de-
livered with the fury and intensity of genius.” And Nietzsche,
be it remembered, denounced Christianity as the “doctrine
of the degenerate,” and democracy as “the refuge of weak-
lings.”

Kidd says that Nietzsche gave Germany the doctrine of
Darwin’s efficient animal in the voice of his superman, and
that Bernhardi and the military textbooks in due time gave
Germany the doctrine of the superman translated into the
national policy of the super-state aiming at the world power.

(Page 67.)

And what else but the spirit of evolution can account for
the popularity of the selfish doctrine, “Each one for himself,
and the devil take the hindmost,” that threatens the very exis-
tence of the doctrine of brotherhood.

In 1900 — twenty-five years ago — while an International
Peace Congress was in session in [64] Paris, the following
editorial appeared in L’Univers:

“The spirit of peace has fled the earth because
evolution has taken possession of it. The plea for
peace in past years has been inspired by faith in
the divine nature and the divine origin of man;
men were then looked upon as children of one

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 43

Father, and war, therefore, was fratricide. But now
that men are looked upon as children of apes,
what matters it [sic: is] whether they are slaugh-
tered or note”

When there is poison in the blood, no one knows on what
part of the body it will break out, but we can be sure that it
will continue to break out until the blood is purified. One of
the leading universities of the South (I love the State too well
to mention its name) publishes a monthly magazine entitled
Journal of Social Forces. In the January issue of this year, a
contributor has a lengthy article on Sociology and Ethics, in the
course of which he says:

“No attempt will be made to take up the matter
of the good or evil of sexual intercourse among
humans aside from the matter of conscious
procreation, but as an historian, it might be worth
while to ask the exponents of the impurity com-
plex to explain the fact that, without exception,
the great periods of cultural afflorescence have
been those characterized by a large [65] amount
of freedom in sex-relations, and that those of
the greatest cultural degradation and decline have
been accompanied with greater sex repression

and purity.”

No one charges or suspects that all or any large percent-
age of the advocates of evolution sympathize with this
loathsome application of evolution to social life, but is worth
while to inquire why those in charge of a great institution of
learning allow such filth to be poured out for the stirring of
the passions of its students.

Just one more quotation: The Southeastern Christian Advocate
of June 25, 1925, quotes five eminent college men of Great
Britain as joining in an answer to the question, “Will civiliza-
tion survive?” Their reply is as follows:

44 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

“The greatest danger menacing our civilization
is the abuse of the achievements of science.
Mastery over the forces of nature has endowed
the twentieth-century man with a power which
he is not fit to exercise. Unless the development
of morality catches up with the development of
technique, humanity is bound to destroy itself.”
(66)

Science Not a Teacher of Morals

Can any Christian remain indifferent? Science needs religion
to direct its energies and to inspire with lofty purpose those
who employ the forces that are unloosed by science. Evolu-
tion is at war with religion because religion is supernatural;
it is, therefore, the relentless foe of Christianity, which is a
revealed religion.

Let us, then, hear the conclusion of the whole matter.
Science is a magnificent material force, but it is not a teacher
of morals. It can perfect machinery, but it adds no moral re-
straints to protect society from the misuse of the machine. It
can also build gigantic intellectual ships, but it constructs no
moral rudders for the control of storm-tossed human ves-
sels. It not only fails to supply the spiritual element needed
but some of its unproven hypotheses rob the ship of its
compass and thus endanger its cargo.

In war, science has proven itself an evil genius; it has
made war more terrible than it ever was before. Man used to
be content to slaughter his fellowmen on a single plane —
the earth’s surface. Science has taught him to go down into
the water and shoot up from below, [67] and to go up into
the clouds and shoot down from above, thus making the
battlefield three times as bloody as it was before; but science
does not teach brotherly love. Science has made war so hell-
ish that civilization was about to commit suicide; and now
we are told that newly discovered instruments of destruction

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 45

will make the cruelties of the late war seem trivial in compat-
ison with the cruelties of wars that may come in the future.
If civilization is to be saved from the wreckage threatened by
intelligence not consecrated by love, it must be saved by the
moral code of the meek and lowly Nazarene. His teachings,
and His teachings alone, can solve the problems that vex the
heart and perplex the world.

The world needs a Saviour more than it ever did before,
and there is only one “Name under heaven given among men
whereby we must be saved.” It is this Name that evolution
degrades, for, carried to its logical conclusion, it robs Christ
of the glory of a virgin birth, of the majesty of His deity
and mission, and of the triumph of His resurrection. It also
disputes the doctrine of the atonement. [68]

The Issue — God or Baal

It is for the jury to determine whether this attack upon the
Christian religion shall be permitted in the public schools of
Tennessee by teachers employed by the State and paid out of
the public treasury. This case is no longer local; the defendant
ceases to play an important part. The case has assumed the
proportions of a battle-royal between unbelief that attempts
to speak through so-called science and the defenders of the
Christian faith, speaking through the Legislators of Ten-
nessee. It is again a choice between God and Baal; it is also

a renewal of the issue in Pilate’s court. In that historic trial
— the greatest in history — force, impersonated by Pilate,
occupied the throne. Behind it was the Roman Government,
mistress of the world, and behind the Roman Government
were the legions of Rome. Before Pilate, stood Christ, the
Apostle of Love. Force triumphed; they nailed Him to the
tree and those who stood around mocked and jeered and
said, “He is dead.” But from that day the power of Caesar
waned and the power of Christ increased. In a few centuries

46 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

the Roman Government was gone and its legions forgotten;
while the crucified and risen Lord has [69] become the great-
est fact in history and the growing Figure of all time.

Force and Love Meet Face to Face

Again force and love meet face to face, and the question,
“What shall I do with Jesus?” must be answered. A bloody,
brutal doctrine — evolution demands, as the rabble did
nineteen hundred years ago, that He be crucified. That cannot
be the answer of this jury representing a Christian State and
sworn to uphold the laws of Tennessee. Your answer will be
heard throughout the world; it is eagerly awaited by a praying
multitude. If the law is nullified, there will be rejoicing wher-
ever God is repudiated, the Saviour scoffed at and the Bible
ridiculed. Every unbeliever of every kind and degree will be
happy. If, on the other hand, the law is upheld and the reli-
gion of the school children protected, millions of Christians
will call you blessed and, with hearts full of gratitude to God,
will sing again that grand old song of triumph:

“Faith of our fathers, living still,

In spite of dungeon, fire and sword;

O how our hearts beat high with joy

W hene’er we hear that glorious word
— Faith of our fathers — holy faith;
We will be true to thee till death!”

[70]

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 47

[71]

Address Delivered
at the Funeral Service
of William Jennings Bryan

Rev. Joseph R. Sizoo
Pastor, New York Avenue Presbyterian Church,
Washington, D. C.

SOME yeats ago — it seems but yesterday — Mr. Bryan
delivered a lecture to a group of some five hundred students
in a mid-Western college. His theme was The Value of an Ideal.
He spoke with that amazing clarity which so characterized

all his addresses, not only of the place of an ideal in life, but
also of the various ideals which men may hold, and then that
highest of all ideals — Christian service.

How profoundly he moved that group of young men Mr.
Bryan never knew. There was one student in that audience
for whom it changed the whole program of his life. This
student was a freshman at college that year, with the plan of
preparing for some professional career. The plea for Chris-

48 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

tian service, made by this great heart of faith, never left him,
and following that urge he later entered the Christian minis-
try.

I was that student. The stirring plea marked [72] the begin-
ning of a whole new attitude of life and I bring my testimony
to the memory of a man who never knew how greatly he had
changed that life. Surely it is unique that, as he lies here dead
among us, I should bear my witness to his influence in this
most solemn hour.

The World’s Need of Men of Faith

How strange are the ways of God, and how otherwise from
out desires! Had it been given to us to control the affairs of
life, how different would it have been! Earth can ill spare such
a noble soul as that of William Jennings Bryan. His ability
was so striking; his sincerity was so genuine; his personality
was so winsome, and his faith so serene, that we had hoped
to have him longer with us. We seemed to need him so. But
God willed otherwise; and “until the daybreak and the shad-
ows flee away” we reverently kneel in submission and say,
“Father, Thy will be done.”

The end came quickly. Mr. Bryan did not suffer; he did not
know pain. A merciful Providence guarded over that hour.
Serenely and in the home of a friend, he made his last great
venture of faith on the first day of the week which, to the
Christian, is the unforgettable symbol of the Resurrection.

To this broken family circle, whose days have so suddenly
and sadly been turned to sorrow and loneliness, the sympathy
and prayers of the nation go out. We commend them to the
Good Shepherd who keepeth watch over His own. We can-
not trace the way along which the Almighty One doth move;
but we can always say that God is love, He is too great to fail
us in this [73] hour of need and He is too good to let us drift
along alone.

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 49

To our dear friends I say, you sorrow not alone. Somehow,
you must be sustained by the innumerable prayers of the
people of the land who are kneeling today, as it were, at the
hearthstone of your broken home. When the golden bow1 is
broken and the silver cord is loosed, we pause, we wonder,
we weep; but God doeth all things well and you may abide
in the promise that underneath and round about you are His
everlasting arms.

We talk about unfulfilled dreams and uncompleted lives
and broken circles; but with God there is no unfinished life
and there are no broken circles. Jesus — dead at thirty-three
— cried out exultantly from the Cross : “It is finished.” So is
every life that follows God’s will.

When is a life finished? When the seed of its influence
has dropped into the lives of others, enriching them. A life
is finished when other lives are lit up by it, and walk in its
strength. A life is finished when those around it have caught
the splendor of its power and live happier, nobler and truer.

If that be true, then this great heart lived a finished life.
The heritage of his life may take long to measure. Multitudes
have caught the splendor of it and lived by its guiding light.

An Unsullied Public Life

It is to rehearse this splendor that we have come today. Praise
ot blame do not affect him now. They never disturbed his
convictions. He was fat above all that while on earth, and he
is [74] far beyond all that now. Nothing we say or do, can in
any way add or detract from him. It is for us to see again the
glory of his life and heed its heritage.

There was a threefold splendor about this noble man
which will ever challenge those who have lived in his day and
who ate to “carry on” in the days to come.

50 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

First: He had a capacity for noble living. He was a man
with an upturned face and an upward life. His life was an
open book beyond all reproach. His character was unsullied
to the very end.

You can turn the searchlight of critical publicity on any
page of his past through all manner of personal and politi-
cal fortunes and not one page is smutted or soiled or stained.
There was no shadow of self-seeking or gain in him. There
was no skeleton in the closet of his years. You do not have to
tread softly over any episode of his life.

Friend and foe call him a man whose great concern was
the cause he espoused, and to those causes he came with
clean hands and a pure heart. Not only for what he said but
for what he was, will his name be treasured.

It was because of this unsullied life that he held the con-
fidence and the affection of the nation for more than thirty
years. So often does one hear it said that men in public life
and leadership are inspired by sinister motives, by ulterior
ambitions, by self-aggrandizement, that he may well ques-
tion the good intentions of every one who aspires to serve
his country. Then God shows us a man like this, to give that
philosophy the lie, a man “whom the lust of office could not
[75] buy and whom the spoils of office could not kill”

His upstanding integrity, his high sense of honor, his
devotion to duty, his sense of gratitude, his remembrance
of the humblest, his freedom from all cant, make his life an
inspiration and a challenge to all the nation. Like so many
great hearts of earth, and like his Master, he met hate without
bitterness, defeat without vengeance, ill-thought with forgiv-
ing love, and misunderstanding with charity.

Oh, ye who mourn and are left stranded upon the shore
of Time, what a comfort and what a heritage is yours! Death
takes many things from us. Truly, he is the great destroyer!

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 51

But one thing, thank God, death can never take away from
you, and that is the imperishable memory of this great
American’s fine manliness, courage and humble sincerity. He
did not live in vain. Thousands are made better because he
passed this way.

His Unfaltering Faith in God

Second: He had a deep capacity for love. He was a gteat
friend and never played fast and loose with friendship. Some
men are not big enough to /ave friends because they are not
big enough to le friends; but not so with him. Political op-
position never lost him personal friendships. His love was
genuine with rich and poor alike; it knew no order, breed or
birth. Differing from men who held contrary convictions, he
still held them within the grasp of lifelong affection.

But his capacity for love reached beyond the border of
the individual. He did not live like a [76] star apart from
his fellow-men. He always spoke with, and of, and for, the
people. He was not only an architect but also the builder of a
better world.

He never lost sight of humanity. His heart beat and his
pulse throbbed for the needs of his fellows. He kept many
a weary vigil on the hilltop of the world, wondering what
might be done to help, never resting till the crown of thorns
had been lifted and the golden crown of happiness and peace
put in its place. It may take decades to measure the urge and
hope for peace which he provided for the nation in his day
and generation.

His Deep, Unfaltering Faith in God

Third: He had a rich capacity for faith. Any summary of his
life, however brief, would be utterly unworthy if it did not
bear witness to his unfaltering faith in God. You will never

52 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

know this man until you come to know him there. He was es-
sentially a religious man.

He was not disillusioned about the world. He knew its
ills and its failures. He was acquainted with its griefs and its
heartburnings, he saw its anguish and wan [sic-saw] hopeless-
ness. He saw all this but he also saw that the way out was not
by some strange hysterical solution.

How often he said that happiness would be restored,
prosperity beat again with its angel wings and peace come
with its eternal abiding, when men come back to the simple,
elemental forces of life like honesty, reverence and faith in
God. Not by the pronunciamentoes of plenipotentiaries, not by
legislative enactment alone, [77] but only as men climb the
storm-swathed sides of Sinai and hear again the voice, “Thus
saith the Lord God,” will prosperity be promoted and peace
dawn at last.

Nothing else explains the greatness of this man like the
greatness of his faith. That was unchallengeable, irresistible
and burned with a quenchless fire. His life was shot through
and through with it and in every utterance of his there welled
up this constant assurance. His life seemed to be a long un-
broken prayer.

Like the Christ he loved and served, who with a scarlet
camp-mantle flung contemptuously across his shoulders,
crowned with a crown of thorns, carrying His cross to an
outlaw’s grave, held constantly to the assurance of His Fa-
ther’s presence, so this noble man unto the very end of the
day, in success and defeat, lived with an unfaltering faith in a
God who never disappointed him.

His hope was eternal and his faith serene. It was a faith
that knew no disappointments because it had no ultimate
defeat. It was a faith that success could not cloud and that
defeat did not dim. He had no misgivings, he feared no inves-

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 53

tigations, he compromised with no error because an unchal-
lengeable surety of God crossed every frontier of disappoint-
ment and leaped over every chasm of misgiving.

For him faces changed and conditions altered, but the
eternal presence of Christ was with him the same yesterday,
today and forever. He was sure that “they that put their trust
in God shall never be put to shame.” [78]

He Rebuilt God’s Altar in Day of Doubt

Some day, perhaps, we may see that this was his great contti-
bution to his day and time, and the final heritage that he has
left to us. He has rebuilt the altar of faith in God and covered
that altar with his very life. It was faith that gave such sweep
to his helpful service, such depth to his character. In the last
analysis an unsullied life and an unchallengeable faith in God
is life’s final argument and has no answer.

In a day full of intellectual bewilderment when many
Christians are growing uncertain of their convictions, when
multitudes have misgivings lest the things they have believed
may prove false; in a day when many become obsessed with
despair like that of a man who has played his last card and
lost, Mr. Bryan grew more sure and his faith more profound.

God be praised for the tonic of this man’s trust in God.
Would that the cloak of his simple faith might fall upon us all!

He never was disturbed by criticism; he never was dis-
tracted by praise, because with the faith of a great prophet he
held his course close to God. Say what you will about him, he
has rethought and restated for multitudes the meaning of life
in terms of God.

For all the saints, who from their labor rest,
Who thee, by faith, before the world confessed,
Thy name, O Jesus, be for-ever blest. Alleluia!

54 Mr Bryan’s Last Message

What a challenge is such a life to all who falter; what a
comfort to all who believe; what [79] an indictment upon all
who reject it; what a prophecy of power to all who make it
real!

We shall see him again, for such a life cannot die. I like
to believe that somewhere in that better country where the
sun goes not down, where twilight breaks into eternal dawn,
where God wipes away all tears, where there is no pain, and
where flowers fade not away, he is still carrying on with the
same sweet faith and same noble spirit into an evergrowing
fullness and likeness of his God and our God.

The Christian’s Victory Over Death

The supreme glory of the Christian faith is in the new mean-
ing it gives to life and the new hope it gives to death. The
greatness of life and the hope of death, which the religion of
Jesus Christ brings to mankind, will ever stand as the un-
matched miracle of the ages.

To ancient peoples, death was a tragedy, a closing of
the book, a sealing of the story. Now and then, to be sure,
some one came who tried to lift the veil; here and there one
expressed a vague supposition. Yet men were afraid. The
shroud seemed to end everything, Death was the last chapter
and the eternal farewell, the night that has no daybreak.

Men butied their dead with their faces towatd the West,
for the last sunset had gone over them. On tombs of the
dead they carved the skull-and-crossbones. Even among the
ancient Hebrews old age was a sign of a particular benevo-
lence, for it meant postponement of the last dread day.

Then came Jesus. He gave the world a new hope and
greeted night with a new song saying [80] that dusk will bring
daybreak and that at eventide there will be light. When a bro-

Mr Bryan’s Last Message 55

ken heart sobbed out its woe to Him, He only replied: “Thy
brother is not dead; he will arise again.”

When He arose again from the dead and ascended to His
Father, He called back over the battlements of heaven to all
His followers: “Because I live, ye, too, shall live also.” Some-
where beyond, life still runs on without the imperfections and
impediments of this life.

We bury our dead with their faces towards the East, for
sunrise eternal has broken over their souls where Nearer, My
God, to Thee is no longer a hymn of hope, but an everlasting
experience.

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

Alnd may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place,
The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face,

When I have crost the bar.

God bless and hallow the heritage and memory of William
Jennings Bryan.

— Finis —

Headquarters Nights

by Vernon Kelloge

In 1915, Kellogg was a pacifist
and humanitarian working with
relief organisations in war-torn
Europe. By 1917, he wanted
wat with Germany, pursued

to total victory. Headquarters
Nights is the story of his
conversion.

“And always we talked, and
tried to understand one anoth-
er; to get the other man’s point
of view, his Weltanshauung.”

The Prussians told Kellogg 3
how Darwinism justified war, Vernon Kellogg
how nations competed in the
struggle for existence, and how Facsimile of 1917 edition
war - the ultimate survival of

the fittest - was the only means
for ensuring civilisation’s
progress.

Kellogg was shocked. An evolutionary biologist and expert on Darwinism,
he knew this reading of Darwin was a corruption. It perverted Darwinism
into a doctrine of ‘might makes right’. After many long nights arguing
with his Prussian hosts, Kellogg concluded there was no reasoning with
them. This perversion had too strong a foothold. It created an evil mili-
tarism. The expansion of their views had to be resisted with all available
force.

Headquarters Nights follows Kelloge’s conversion. This was no easy jour-
ney. Kelloge’s struggles offer an intimate study of one man’s transforma-
tion from an opponent of all wars into an advocate of one. His conver-
sion will offer insight for modern thinkers about world events today.

Facsimile of 1917 edition | 2009 | ISBN: 978-1-906267-12-4
Euston Grove Press | www.EustonGrove.com

As the Scopes ‘Monkey’ Trial came

to an end in July 1925, William Jennings
Bryan expected to deliver the
prosecution's closing argument.
Procedural tactics by the defence
prevented this. The trial ended without
the long-awaited climatic moment

in front of the world’s media.

Five days later, unexpectedly, Bryan died. In their bereavement,
supporters focused on Bryan’s unspoken words as their last chance
to connect with the Great Commoner. A local newspaper editor
gave Bryan’s text a quick polish, then saw to its speedy publication.

This volume reprints that 1925 material in its entirety, together with

a brief historical introduction. Joe Cain is a historian of science
at University College London.

ISBN 978-1-906267-16-2

2 Te19 0 6 Mil